Donald Trump’s pendulum now points to the peace agreement WITH Ukraine, not ABOUT Ukraine. We don’t know, nor does he, how long it will take to go to the opposite extreme, but for now he is confident. “Something good could be happening“, he promised somewhat mysteriously a few hours ago. After threatening total chaos, it is progress. And Ukraine knows it, with . In them, even Europe seems to paint something again… to the despair of a Russia that is already warning that the modifications “do not suit them.”
Having said all this, which is not easy to condense into a paragraph, where are we? From the tense and not at all light summit in Switzerland between Ukraine, the EU and the US, things have changed in relation to 28 point peace plan agreed between Washington and Moscow.
Let’s go with the key changes after the ‘entry’ of the EU:
- Las territorial renunciations: Faced with the original ‘peace’ project, which involved Ukraine’s handover of the Donbas to Russia and the recognition of Russian sovereignty in occupied Crimea, the Geneva modifications leave an alternative formula, not completely to kyiv’s liking: “Ukraine undertakes not to recover its occupied sovereign territory by military means […] Negotiations on territorial exchanges will begin from the line of contact.”
- He ukrainian army cutoutthe initial proposal is reduced (which went from the current 980,000 soldiers to 600,000), leaving the new figure at 800,000 members in peacetime.
- He ‘apartment I TAKE‘: this point is longer, we note, given its importance in the original plan. The three-party draft—USA, Ukraine, EU—eliminates point 3, which ensured that “NATO does not expand further,” in no way a veiled reference to Ukraine never aspiring to be a member of the Atlantic alliance. A red line for kyiv that, for now, is suspended.
In parallel, 7 was published, which sought to limit via the Constitution of Ukraine and NATO Statutes that kyiv could never be a member; Now everything would remain (as it was before) in the hands of the 32 Atlantic allies.
We continue with NATO. If article 8 of the 28 stated that NATO agreed not to deploy troops in Ukraine, now “not permanently in peacetime” is added, which leaves the door open for members of the ‘Voluntary Coalition’ who are not NATO members to do so. Regarding the mediation that marked point 4 of the US between NATO and Russia to avoid new conflicts, it disappears. Now the flow will be direct between the alliance and the Kremlin.
- The War and post-war economy in Russia and Ukraine: While the European Union debates, still without success, how to use the frozen Russian funds in the reconstruction of Ukraine, Brussels has now managed to sneak in its part, preventing the US from setting the deadlines, costs… and taking the benefits. Incidentally, the EU has managed to get its proposal debated, another thing is whether it finally sees the light. That proposal states that Ukraine will be fully rebuilt and economically compensated, including through Russian sovereign assets that will remain frozen until Russia compensates for the damage caused to Ukraine.
As for the Russia’s “reintegration” into the world economy After three years of ostracism, as the proposal born in Alaska stated, there is now another formula on the table. A reintegration, yes, but “progressive” and once the war is over. Europe admits, in parallel, that when that moment comes, Putin’s country “will be invited back to the G8”, an old wish of Donald Trump that has never been hidden.
Russia says ‘no’ to changes: why
In Moscow the mandate is clear. “No” to Europe’s modifications, trying to delegitimize the negotiating role of the European Union. With unusual diplomacy in the Kremlin, the international advisor Yuri Ushakov assures that “at first glance, the European plan does not suit us“.
While Putin tries to bring positions even closer with his partner Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey, the Government considers some of the 28 points rejected by kyiv and now qualified by the US to be “quite acceptable.”
In Ushakov’s opinion – that is, in Putin’s opinion – keeping half of Ukraine is “quite acceptable”, but promoting an alternative plan that does not allow them to keep half of Ukraine “is not constructive in any way.”
For this reason, Moscow insists on the need and the “logic” of promoting new US-Russia bilateral work summits to align a final agreement with the interests of the Putin regime, mirroring the events in recent hours between the US and Ukraine, plus the EU, in Geneva.
